Is it possible for a user of Tableau Server to use the application to retrieve/extract the data underlying a published visualization? This comes from an internal client, and I don't see any indication in the support documents that this can be done, but I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something.

To be clear, this doesn't mean just the data underlying a particular data point in the visualization, but rather the entire overall data set on which the visualization is built.

"It depends". First you'll probably want to explain to the client that Tableau Server isn't really built for this purpose.

Next, you can try exporting the report from the command line with tabcmd export -csv

Doing so will dump rows in a sheet as a csv file. Keep in mind that this mechanism wasn't really built so a user could do a wholesale dump of data behind a report - they should use a true Extract / Transform / Load tool for that sort of work.

If you approach it this way, you'll have a happy-ish client if it works, but one who understands if things don't go so well

Russell, thanks for this. It confirms the impression I already had that Tableau isn't really the right tool for this job, but I'm also glad to know how to take the best possible swing at it within Tableau's constraints.

So would an average user (a viewer of visualizations on Server, as opposed to a developer) have access to run that command? If so, would it be easy for them to see how to do it? I know many clients who turn pale when they hear the phrase "command line."

I personally wouldn't set the average user loose with TabCmd - It really is an admin tool, and they'll have questions / problems, etc. Ultimately, it will unfairly diminish the "easy of use" proposition of Tableau in their eyes.